


Baring Truths

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:40:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25040275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Mulder and Scully are quarantined… separately. They pine over each other and when the quarantine is finally lifted, mulder wastes no time pulling her in for that long sought out kiss.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	Baring Truths

Flights were cancelled without warning. Flattening the curve meant no travel outside state lines. Two weeks mandatory quarantine. Scully shut the door to the guest room and perched on the soft bed. It sunk like her stomach. Two weeks mandatory quarantine with Mulder would have been bearable. After all, the years they spent on the run were the worst kind of forced isolation. But two weeks with Bill? 

Fuck.

There was a framed portrait of her mom on the nightstand. Scully picked it up and smiled at Maggie. “Even you wouldn’t have enjoyed this, however saintly you were,” she whispered.

Her phone buzzed.

Glad I didn’t come now

She called him. “Is that a statement or a question, Mulder?”

He chuckled. Hearing his gravelly voice shot an unexpected bolt of emotion through her. And arousal. “Poor Bill.”

“Poor Bill?” she snipped, then balked at the noise of footsteps outside the door. She lowered her voice. “What about me?”

“You’ll skin him alive by day ten, Scully. Even I’m feeling sorry for the guy.”

The pillow behind her head was hard and she shifted it trying to get a more comfortable position. “How are we going to survive this, Mulder?”

“I promise to water your cordyline, Scully, if you promise to send me nudes every night.”

Heat coiled around her guts. “That doesn’t seem like an equitable arrangement.”

“Okay,” he cut in, “I’ll sand back the door to the study so it doesn’t sound like ‘Skinner with laryngitis’ when I close it.”

It really did sound like Skinner with laryngitis but somehow she was already missing it. “I didn’t mean that,” she said, looking at the door here. The footsteps retreated, down the stairs, Bill’s voice grating from the kitchen. She kicked up the duvet and slipped her feet under the covers. How she’d miss looping her legs through Mulder’s to keep warm. Her sigh was like a balloon deflating. “What I meant was,” she said, flattening the lumps in the duvet, “maybe you should be sending me nudes.” 

One day in and she was already talking like a hormonal teenager. A sharp intake of breath in her ear. More muffled sounds from the bowels of the house. A blush deepened from her forehead to the swell of her breasts. 

He broke the silence first, teasing. “What are you going to do for me in exchange for those hot shots? I mean, there are no plants to keep alive, no odd jobs to finally get done. You’re a guest there.”

“Hot shots? Ha,” she exclaimed. An image of his torso, sparse silvery chest hair, permanently erect nipples (a favourite quirk of hers), developed abs, that dark thatch…”you really do have designs on yourself, Mulder.”

“You didn’t answer my question. What’s the deal?” 

From downstairs, she heard the murmur of voices, then a louder call. “Dana!”

“Jeez, his voice is so loud even I stood to attention,” Mulder said dryly.

“Mulder, sexting is a crime,” she whispered urgently. “And I should go.” 

Reluctantly, she prised herself from the bed.

Bill knocked at the door, a sharp rap incongruous to Mulder’s honeyed voice in her ear. “You should. And I’ll send you that list.”

“What list?” She pulled back the door and greeted Bill with a mouthed ‘Mulder’ to which he grimaced and turned his back.

Mulder chuckled and added, a little bit too loudly for her liking, “the list of things you can do to warrant my nudes.”

Bill swung back round and glared. She ended the call.

Watching Netflix with no chill, laptop propped on a pillow, Scully felt every ache in her muscles and every pang of loneliness. Cricking her neck, she slipped off the bed, knelt on the carpeted floor and Googled a yoga work out. She was in downward dog when Mulder rang. She clicked him to speaker.

“Whatchya doin?”

She left her ass in the air while downward dogging and told him she was reading.

“I’ve binged multiple seasons of Buzzfeed Unsolved.”

“Mulder, you must know the script by now.” She let out a deep sigh. “Isn’t there something else you could watch?”

“I didn’t think you liked me doing that…” He chuckled and she could hear him moving about, maybe getting a snack. “What are you reading?” 

“Oh, just some,” her shoulders flexed and tension released in a delicious warmth through her arms, “medical stuff. You know.”

“Yeah, sounds like it’s making you horny.”

Scully sat back on her heels and scoffed. “I think you’ll find that’s you, Mulder. I’m fine.” Her thighs pressed together and she felt a twinge between them. She shifted. She was fine. 

“How’s Bill? Ironing creases in his pants so sharp they could shave four-day growth? Precision trimming the lawn with nail scissors? Colour-co-ordinating the spice rack?”

Clam-shelling on her right side, she giggled. “He’s already done that. Tomorrow, I think he’s going to try his hand at pruning the roses and Tara is terrified he’s going to go full military barber on them.”

Hearing him laugh so heartily left her breathless. She rolled onto the other side, taking the phone with her. Over the years, his voice had been irritation, levity, salvation, comfort, blessing, love. She missed it, live, in her ear, the sound of his breathing, the soft pop of his lips opening, the way he always breathed in deeply through his nostrils just before he went to kiss her so she could feel the rise of his chest and then the fall as he exhaled. Now, she held on to the last of his breathy chuckling and lifted herself on to all fours.

“I watered Cordelia and read her The Tell-tale Heart. She loved it. Shook her leaves at me.”

“Cordelia, Mulder?” It was endearing, really. His naming of inanimate objects. He had a paper weight in the shape of a shrunken head he called Frank, a pair of cat bookends, one sitting upright, the other curled around its tail, referred to as Bastet and Sekmet after Egyptian goddesses. He’d once called a bra and panty set of hers Bellefleur because they reminded him of that early version of her who bared herself in panic but ended up listening to his backstory, horrified by his experience, working out where her rationality would fit into his journey, but incredibly soothed by that voice of his. 

“It’s the door next.”

“And then you expect me to…?”

The ‘hmm-mm’ noise he made sent her pulse racing. “You already owe me one. And I’ve compiled my list, Scully. One nude, and I’ll send you my request.”

“Mul…”

“A deal’s a deal.” He cut her off. She was about to protest when he spoke again. 

“What are you wearing?” The way his voice lowered was practically obscene. 

Rolling her lips under her teeth, she proceeded to tell him. The midnight blue satin pyjamas with the “deep V neck and the stitched pocket that sits over your left breast and makes the nipple look like a marble,” he finished for her.

“Yeah,” she said, unlooping the first button from its fastener. Her wrist brushed her breast and the nipple hardened to granite. She slipped the entire top off, letting it fall around her ass, sleeves fluttering over her thighs. She picked up her phone and switched the camera to selfie mode. Snapping a quick shot, she sent it to him before she changed her mind. Hot guilt combined with a soft thrill shivered through her, leaving her skin stippled with gooseflesh. 

She heard him swallow. She thought he might have licked his lips. He definitely moaned quietly. Then he said, “where’s the rest?” and she swallowed, licked her lips and moaned. 

“Mulder, I’m…I…it’s…”

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “If you don’t want to…it’s okay. I…just…I miss you, Scully, that’s all. You…the photo…you’re so fucking beautiful. You know that, don’t you?”

The blush was sudden, deep and left her clammy. Her nipples tightened even more. Heat pooled at her core. “Mulder…I miss you too. And I want to see you, hold you,” she lowered her voice, “love you.”

“God, Scully. How are we going to survive this?” 

There was a rustle, a crackle, a slow sigh. “Are you…Mulder are you…?”

“Yeah,” he said, but it was more of a groan, followed by a wet opening of his lips. “That photo, Scully. I’m rock hard.”

Footsteps up the stairs. Bill’s, by the weight of them. She’d already started to slide the pants down her legs, but she whipped them back up and clutched her top to her bare chest. The cell remained on the carpet amplifying Mulder’s ever-increasing noises, the sucking in of breath, the rough exhalations, the guttural moans. She could picture his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he stroked his length. She could practically taste the salty sweat on his stubbled jawline. She could also, unfortunately, picture Bill’s face as he stood at her door, ready to knock. 

And knock he did. “Dana?” His voice was tight. But when wasn’t it? “We’ve made hot chocolate, thought you might like something warm and sweet.”  
The door handle pushed down. The arm of her pyjama top tangled and she struggled to untwist it, all the while Bill was asking her if it was okay to come in.

“Scully?” Mulder’s voice broke the panicked silence. “Are you still there? I’m just about to…”

“Bill,” she cried, as loud as she could to cover Mulder’s throaty moaning. “Hang on. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Ughnnnggghhh.” Mulder’s voice reached fever pitch.

She finally had the top on and she scooped the phone from the floor, swiping it off speaker and pressing it to her ear all in one movement just as Bill pushed open the door. His face was a dark mask. Hers must have been a pink, sweaty mess. God knows what Mulder’s looked like. In fact, she knew exactly what it would look like. And she wanted to see it, god dammit.

“I have to go, Mulder. Bill’s made hot chocolate.”

“And I’ve made a mess,” he quipped but there was a sweet relief in his tone. “I love you, Scully.”

She hadn’t quite reached the lounge room when the message came through. Tara smiled, offering her a mug filled with creamy chocolate, a pink marshmallow melting over the surface leaving a frothy swirl. It kind of looked like…

You can have a freebie.

The photo of Mulder showed him lying across the couch, propped on one elbow highlighting the contours of his biceps. His expression was somewhere between wanting and wanton. She cradled the screen and scanned the rest of it, filtering out Tara and Bill’s chatting, she heard the words sweet potato pie and naval standards and was glad she had other things to occupy her mind. Other things like the way Mulder’s incredibly defined abs were lit and shadowed in such a way that each ridge was gilded and each valley was bronzed. It was utterly magnificent. She sipped the sweet liquid and it trickled down her throat as she admired the image. He had on track pants and a hand round the back, hooked through the waistband, lowering them over his hips, revealing the top of the line of hair that drew her eyes to the bulge.

Ready for your task? 

Convince Bill that I’m a good partner.

She sputtered into the chocolate and Bill stopped talking. “Okay, Dana?”

Smiling, she felt the heat of a frothy moustache across her top lip. It gave her a good excuse to lick it, as she studied Mulder’s image and his message. How the fuck could she convince her brother of Mulder’s worth when he was sending her these photos? “I’m fine,” she said, putting the mug on the small table beside her chair.

No fair. You only had to water a plant. My task is the equivalent of reversing climate change.

“Is that still Mulder? I thought you told him you were having a moment with us?” Bill’s eyes narrowed. Could he see the screen? 

“He’s just telling me all the things he’s been doing since the quarantine began. Sanding back the door, keeping our plants healthy, getting his hands dirty…”

“Isn’t that just what any normal person does in a normal day?”

“Bill,” Tara cut in, throwing her husband a stop it look before smiling sweetly at Dana. “How is Mulder? Is he doing okay without you?”

“Oh, he’s fine. He’s quite used to isolation, so he’s just busy being Mulder, keeping himself to himself.”

“I’ll bet,” Bill added, reaching for a newspaper. He unfolded it sharply. 

Her phone buzzed and she tapped the message. 

Another freebie, just because Iiving with your brother is work enough.

The image of Mulder, completely naked, cock in hand, sated, self-satisfied grin on his face, filled her screen. She pressed a cough into her closed fist and inhaled.

“You know, I’ve never really understood what you see in him, Dana? It’s no secret the man gets under my skin with his fistful of macho and that smug look he gets.”

Blinking slowly, Scully pulled her eyes from the image and turned the cell over on her lap. Heat grew on her thigh, as though Mulder could burn into her. “Fistful of macho? Is that a Clint Eastwood movie? Why don’t you just go ahead and tell the truth, Bill? You don’t like Mulder. He can never do anything right in your eyes, despite the fact we’ve been together for years now. And we had a child together. And he’s my best friend.”

“Best friends don’t go running off, getting themselves abducted and killed an putting their loved ones in danger. Best friends don’t force their partners to give up their children…”

That one stung.

“William Scully junior,” Tara snapped. “Dana is a guest in our house. I’m sorry Dana. Sometimes, he gets so…”

“It’s okay, Tara,” Scully sighed. “I asked him to tell me. It’s nothing I don’t already know.” Nothing I haven’t already spent years drowning in my own tears over.

Bill growled softly, ignoring his wife’s pleading eyes. The arguments Scully and he had as teenagers were always protracted, laced with blunt truths and usually ending with much door-slamming and yelling names at each other. Missy was the peace-keeper. Bill is a pigheaded butt, Danes, but so are you. If you don’t like hearing the truth, don’t ask the honest person. 

“Mulder is the most annoying person I’ve ever come across. It’s just that simple, Dana. I’m sorry, but I can’t explain it any more. He’s a self-absorbed, annoying jerk.” Bill flapped the newspaper shut again, gritted his teeth. An image of her father popped into her mind. Disappointment and frustration oozing from every pore when she told him her plans to join the Bureau. He’d folded a newspaper with precision too, as if to emphasise a demarcation line in their relationship.

The hot chocolate was now lukewarm and the froth was just a pale circle at the edge of the cup. Tara left the room with a short, embarrassed sigh, and the frostiness between Scully and Bill crackled. Maybe it was time to bare more truths.

“You know, Bill. I have often wondered what you would say to me if I spoke about Tara in the same way you speak of Mulder. If I described her only in negative terminology, in a demeaning tone?”

He cleared his throat, looked at the mantelpiece, at the row of family photographs. “Tara is…”

“Loving, caring, sensitive, maternal, patient, kind, tolerant,” Scully said.

Bill’s nostrils went from flared to lax, his lips changed from hard white lines to soft pink, his eyes fixed on her, gentler, maybe. “Tara is nothing like Mulder.”

She tilted her face. “No,” she said, “She certainly isn’t. And that’s kind of the point, Bill. I don’t want to spend all my time with her, I don’t want to know what she dreams about, or is frightened of, I don’t want to comfort her when she’s had a terrifying nightmare, or when she’s threatening self-harm because of PTSD, I don’t want to eat her burnt omelette or launder her unmatched socks.” Bill’s shoulders dropped and he studied the open palms of his hands, only looking up when she added, “and I certainly don’t find her sexually attractive.” A strange, high-pitched noise escaped his throat and his cheeks darkened. She chuffed. “I’m sorry, Bill. I don’t like blondes.” Palms raised in honesty to her brother, her cell slipped from her lap. 

His eyebrows shot up. “Did you…? Are you…?”

“College, brunette, put your indignation back in your bag, Bill. My love life is no reflection on you. It never has been. That’s what I’ve been trying to say. You love Tara for as many reasons as I love Mulder. And they’re all personal.” She bent forward to reach for the phone, but Bill beat her to it. 

“I get it,” he said, fishing the phone from the floor. Disgust was still etched across his brow. When he flipped the phone over, it buzzed in his hand. Her heart hammered, her skin crawled. “A message from Mulder,” Bill said and his thumb swiped the screen. Thank fuck for password protect, she thought as he held it out to her.

How’s it going?

Tara made a reappearance and Bill’s eyes lit up. “Did you put the electric blanket on, darling?”

“Of course,” Tara said, beaming. “Goodnight Dana. Sleep tight.”

It was honestly a surprise to Scully that her pigheaded butt brother would concede to such creature comforts. But none of them was getting any younger. Maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought. Maybe Bill was just a softie at heart.

Bill likes a warm bed.

She watched her brother slip his hand into Tara’s and squeeze it as they walked up the stairs. 

She followed. And he’s more tactile than I knew.

Mulder replied. But the 64 thousand dollar question is does he like me?

Bill turned to her at the landing, letting go of Tara’s hand as she walked into their bedroom. “Dana…” His cheeks flamed and she saw a flash of contrition in his eyes. “PTSD? For real?”

“Mm-mm.” Her head felt heavy on her shoulders as she nodded. She pressed the cell to her chest, a way of protecting Mulder.

“I…I didn’t know.” From inside his bedroom, noises of Tara going through her bedtime routine broke the awkward silence. Bill stepped closer to her. “Is he okay? I mean, really?”

Her cell buzzed. I can’t stand the suspense, Scully.

She chuffed. “I know you think Mulder is arrogant, impulsive, annoying,” she said, half-smiling. “But he’s also resilient, strong and brave. And that’s what I see in him.”

Bill turned to open his bedroom door but he looked back over his shoulder before he disappeared through. He simply nodded.

___

She sunk into the mattress and lifted the phone above her, taking a poorly lit selfie that showed her wrinkles, greys and eye-bags. She sent it to Mulder with the caption, no more nudes.

He rang her instantly. “Did Bill see the photos?”

“Oh my god, no, Mulder! I just…no. It’s fine. He didn’t. Our secrets are safe. Providing you’ve taken all the necessary precautions.”

“Thank fuck for that.” His deep, slow sigh sent shivers up her spine. “I presume our little trade is off for now?”

“What other jobs have you done, Mulder?” She toyed with the button on her pyjamas.

“Well,” he said, “I may have tried to build a birdhouse.”

“What went wrong, Mulder?”

“Uh, my word-working skills are a little rusty, that’s all, Scully.”

“Can you send me a photo?” she asked.

The image was not of a wonky bird table but of Mulder, sans clothes, lips slightly open, eyes narrowed, shadowy light over his body. “That wasn’t quite what I was expecting.”

“But you’ll take it?”

She slipped her hand down the pants of her pyjamas, along the edge of her briefs. Heat gathered at her fingertips and she brushed lightly up and down the crease. “I’ll take all I can get at this stage, Mulder.”

“What are you doing, Scully? You sound…breathless.”

She slid the briefs over her hips and wriggled herself free of any bottoms. She let her knees fall open and she felt the slick warmth of herself. “I’m missing you, Mulder. That’s what I’m doing.” She upped her pace and let him talk to her about four-by-two and hammers until her climax curled her toes and she held her breath until the waves subsided.

“So good ole Bill loves me now, does he?”

She kept her hand against her mound and let the twitches jump against her fingers. “I wouldn’t quite put it like that, but he has a newfound respect for you.” Mulder made an appreciative noise in his throat. “What would you like to me conquer tomorrow, Mulder? A second moon landing. World peace?”

He chuckled. “Just talk to me, Scully. The sound of your voice is keeping me sane.”

___

Fourteen long days passed. No more nudes, but plenty more furtive self-pleasuring on both ends of the phone, and she finally boarded the plane home. Once, inside their house, Mulder kissed her long, hard, leaving teeth marks in her lips and nail crescents on her neck. Then he dragged her outside and showed her the birdhouse, upright, painted forest green, a net of nuts and seeds hanging over the side. His smile, toothy and bright, warmed her heart. This was what she saw in her Mulder.

She took a photo of him standing next to his creation and sent it to Bill.

Who is that? he responded.

Her smile dropped away. It’s Mulder, she tapped, furiously. Nearly adding, you pigheaded butt.

It’s just that I’ve never seen him smile, Dana. 

Oh. She looked up at her partner, her love and smiled back. “Bill says hi.”

Mulder’s eyebrows shot up. “Annoying jerk says hi back.”

From the kitchen, they watched a pair of nuthatches pecking seeds from the netting for a while until he took her by the hand and led her upstairs, the promise of a long, loving night ahead. Baring truths together.


End file.
